Laytonville Girl Scouts rock the Robotics

Girl Scout Cadette troops from Laytonville and Fort Bragg traveled to Modesto in November to compete in the first Lego League's robotic competition and both teams came home with something to celebrate.

Troops 10376 from Laytonville and 10737 from Fort Bragg were sponsored by Girl Scouts of Northern California through a grant from Motorola, which provided the robotics kits, the teams' registration fees, team T-shirts (designed by the girls), and hotel and food costs for the competition.

Emily Luscombe and Niki Bradley, 10376's adult leaders, drove their team, self-named the Robotic Flowers, to Modesto, after the teams were bumped from a closer location. From Fort Bragg came the J-Lows, named for Girl Scout founder Juliette Low and led by Melissa Cornell and Erica Alfaro.

The J-Lows earned fourth place and took home the Judges' Trophy, which was awarded for cooperation, spirit, and helping other teams.

"This was the perfect award for a group of Girl Scouts to win," said Samantha Burkey, Girl Scout staffer for Mendocino County. "These are exactly the characteristics we are trying to nurture in Girl Scouting."

The Laytonville girls displayed other Girl Scout virtues in their efforts, according to Troop Leader Luscombe. Having gotten a late start on the project, the girls only had four weeks to prepare for the competition. They built the robot ("and rebuilt it a lot of times," according to Girl Scout Iona Luscombe, 12), then had to learn how to program it for the competition.

Then they were forced to cope with a variety of injuries and illnesses while getting to Modesto, and one of the eight-girl team was not able to attend.

Nevertheless, the Robotic Flowers' robot (named WALL-E) worked. There were three practice rounds followed by one competition round, according to Iona. WALL-E was expected to "pick things up, push things, pull things, and flip levers," she explained. WALL-E "got three of them-the fourth one got stuck."

Despite the short preparation time the Robotics Flowers had, they were thrilled to learn that they had finished ahead of the Electrons, another team that had had much more time to prepare. "They were all dancing and singing, 'We didn't come in last!'" reported Emily Luscombe, laughing.

The Laytonville troop plans to do this again next year. "We'll tinker with it all year and take on the competition next year all prepared," declared Emily. "It was really good to learn together. There was a really nice spirit of helping each other out."

The FLL competition is only the public aspect of this robotics program. In addition, there is a theme project which this year is Senior Solutions, which was finding solutions to problems encountered by older people. The Robotic Flowers built an adjustable cup holder for wheelchairs. The team was required to do a presentation and share their project with a group of local people.